#source: the complete book of elves

[missrosiewolf]

Found the elf life stage chart

[beatx-mavie-archangelx]

i love being a dnd lore fan because canon is all over the place and we're never actually talking about the same thing.

[thethiefandtheairbender]

as a lifelong ATLA fan who narrowly had ATLA dethroned as my top show by The Dragon Prince steadily over the past 5 years, the similarities between the two have very little to do with the surface level parallels that get regularly drawn between them.

Like ATLA, TDP has Books for seasons and chapters for episodes, but unlike ATLA, which only touched on storytelling sparingly as a theme, TDP is obsessed with interrogating storytelling and history and the presence of unreliable, biased narrators throughout many of its episodes (most notably 2x05, 2x06, 3x06, 4x04, and 4x07 among them). Half of what you learn in the 1x01 intro ends up being a lie once you reach S3, with more being steadily deciphered.

Yes, TDP has different magics with people living under those umbrella terms... for the elves. Humans are coming culturally at things from a completely different angle, and the elves' connection to their primal sources are discussed philosophically in detail, informing their practices and their culture first hand, including the way they chafe against humans, who are arcanum-less. Many animals in the world are also connected to magic, which influences both their design and which ones get hunted for humans' more 'clever' solution in dark magic, including each other.

The core issue of the Puppetmaster, down to being a coercive magic formed by someone deeply resentful of their imprisonment? Said puppetmaster is the main endgame antagonist of the entire show with all of S4 onwards being exploring the ethics of controlling people against their will in various methods, and the entire show itself being a thematic battleground of fate (imprisonment) vs free will for virtually every single character.

Where ATLA mostly concerns itself timeline wise with ending the war, very little thought is shown by any of the characters as to what they'll do after the war. This isn't a problem (as it reflects the sheer domineering scope of the conflict) but even Zuko being firelord is only ever really addressed with 2.5 episodes left till the finale. TDP, meanwhile, ends its 'war' in s3 and s4 opens up with dealing with the old wounds festering between people with centuries of history, the struggles that come when people aren't able to let go and believe they're safe or mourn in a healthy manner, and the religious/cultural clashes that may occur when trying to integrate different groups of people.

TDP also has an evil father with a devoted daughter and a brother who eventually defects, but it explores the reality of an abusive parent who loves/will sacrifice for you and your right to leave regardless, even if that means leaving the sibling you truly deeply love and who loves you in turn. Which means that when you and your sibling are on opposite sides of a deep ideological conflict, it actually really fucking hurts bc we've seen first hand just how much they love each other and also how and why everything fell apart not in spite of that love necessarily, but also because of it.

Is this to say that TDP is a 1:1 with ATLA or that it's better? No, not at all, and the latter is subjective. I prefer TDP, but I think they're about on equal ground when you look at each show currently as a whole (although TDP has two seasons left to go).

But TDP takes a lot of what ATLA was doing thematically with some of its most interesting beats and then builds or expands upon them further. It talks further and more consistently about the cycles of violence; in many ways, Jack De Sena's character, Callum, begins the series largely where Sokka had ended (and he's not the most like Sokka anyway; very much his own thing); we get Faustian bargains and centuries' long grief and fucked up people who are trying both succeeding and failing at not doing fucked up things. There are antagonists, but it is very hard to actually label anyone at this point a straight up villain. Moral greyness is where the show starts, and it just continues from there.

That's not to say the show is nothing but dark and depressing - like ATLA, there's a steady thread of hope and humour even as the show gets steadily closer and closer to its 11th hour point - but the show is usually emotionally heavier. There's more blood and potentially disturbing imagery with body horror and on screen death. There's so much foreshadowing you basically can't go more than 5 minutes into any episode without having something that's going to come back around or be referenced again like 3-5 seasons later.

Just to be clear - TDP is like ATLA, but it's like ATLA in interesting ways beyond the more shallow surface level that usually gets attributed to it, while still very much being its own show and its own thing. And that is why I tend to recommend it to people who like ATLA.

Thank you and goodnight

(Also, the fandom doesn't have any ship wars, and the show is queer as fuck)

[pigeon-princess]

If you've ever wanted to know about our Curse of Strahd campaign this is a summary of everything so far. We have been playing for over a year so it's a very long read!

We are about halfway through the campaign so there are still a few major plot points and important NPCs that we have not encountered yet so please no spoilers in any tags, questions or responses! 

Our campaign has a few added homebrew elements, extended lore from the novels and some NPCs that have been added/changed by our DM so some things will vary from the source book!

Disclaimers: Spoilers below the cut for major Curse of Strahd plot points in Vallaki, Argynvostholt, Dinner at Ravenloft, Wizard of Wines and more. 

Our party members: 

Benoit - Tiefling Druid (Circle of Stars) 

Silas Shaw - Human Wizard (Order of Scribes)

Lucius “Thornhill”- Aasimar Paladin (Oath of devotion) (+ his golden retriever summoned familiar called Dog) 

Benoit was looking for a way into Barovia Valley to search for his missing mentor who was looking into the situation happening with the Dusk Elves. 

Lucius, a paladin with a sordid past, was following a mysterious letter from a “Kolyan Indirovich” who apparently needed help to save the love of his life. 

Silas was desperately trying to get out of the city after escaping his abusive mother who kept him sick and locked in their dilapidated home, while also hoping to get any information about his absent wizard father. 

ENTERING BAROVIA

The party started their journey at the Elfsong Tavern in Balder’s Gate. 

The unlikely group of three made their way into Barovia Valley, following the road until they were quickly lost in the mists.

While camping on the first night, Silas had a very vivid dream of being trapped back in his house. He had lost the ability to walk again and had to crawl through a pool of blood to rescue his father’s spellbook that had been cast into the fire. 

On the road, the party discovered the body of a dead man. His pockets contained another version of Kolyan’s letter (seemingly the real one) detailing a vampire attack on his daughter Ireena Kolyana. 

The group arrived in Barovia Village where they met Ismark at the Blood of the Vine Tavern. Discovering that his father Kolyan (The Burgomaster of Barovia Village) had recently died, drunk and distressed, Ismark further explained the attacks from Strahd von Zarovich (A vampire and the dark lord of Barovia Valley) on his sister Ireena.

The party agreed to help Ismark bury his father and assist in finding a safer place for Ireena to stay. 

While staying in the Burgomaster’s house. Luci experienced a dream in a beautiful church, where a faceless man stood in the flames of a burning pyre. The figure invited Luci to come and sit with him.

The group assisted Ireena and Ismark in getting their father’s coffin to the local church and there they met Father Donovich. After hearing screaming from the floor beneath, Ismark attempted to force his way into the cellar and Donovich started to grapple him. Silas cast levitate on Father Donovich, sending him high into the rafters of the church. The group discovered Doru in the basement, Donovich’s son who had been turned into a vampire spawn. 

With the horrible condition Doru was in the party decided that a mercy killing was the only solution. The party locked a crying Donovich in a spare room and sent Ismark and Ireena outside. Silas firmly stayed upstairs while Luci and Benoit went down to put Doru out of his misery. 

Doru fought back, making an escape for the stairs and scaring the absolute shit out of Silas who then cast fireball for the first time. This completely annihilated Doru. His burning corpse tumbled down the stairs and landed right at Lucius’s feet, a vivid memory of the burning man from his dream resurfacing.

In a solemn mood, the party burned what remained of Kolyan and Doru in the graveyard.

A supernatural mist surrounded the party and large wolves began to attack. Combat commenced and after the fight, the party got their first glance of Strahd. He appeared on horseback from a distance before turning and leaving. 

OLD BONEGRINDER

The group decided to head towards Vallaki, in hopes that the Church of St Andral would be consecrated ground where Ireena would be safe from Strahd. 

The party encountered a woman selling “Dream Pies” to soulless people. They saw a couple give their child to the woman in exchange for pies and the little girl was thrown into a sack.

 Lucius insisted that the party needed to intervene and much to Silas’s annoyance, they followed the woman towards the mill known as Old Bonegrinder. 

Just outside of Old Bonegrinder, the party discovered their first megalith and saw that the shrine was desecrated with teeth. A very large raven flew over and was clearly trying to communicate something about the teeth to the party. 

The group stormed into Old Bonegrinder and began combat with two hags, the third one apparently still out. 

During combat the party realised that one of the Hags had turned herself into Ismark, shoving the real Ismark into the oven. 

After dragging Ismark out of the oven and saving him by mere seconds, the party managed to make it out alive as the entire Bonegrinder burnt to the ground. Luckily saving the little girl in the process. 

Running over from the megalith, the raven turned into a person and the party met Falkon Targolov for the first time. A wereraven and relative of the Martikov family. He said he was planning to take down the hags himself and that he worked for a group called the Keepers of the Feather.

VALLAKI 

The group agreed to meet with Falkon later at the Bluewater Inn and before long, finally arrived in Vallaki. 

They made a very quick beeline to the Church of St Andral, but were surprised by the four fresh gravestones out front that listed everyone's names, excluding Ireena. 

As soon as Luci’s familiar was able to cross the threshold of the church, being a demonic creature, Luci could immediately sense that the church was not consecrated. 

Lucius spoke with Father Lucien Petrovich, inquiring about the graves and asking if he could take in the little girl with the other orphans at the church. 

Father Lucien explained that the graves were recently commissioned and he would look into the records. Sensing that Luci was a man of god, he admitted that the bones of St Andral that usually kept the church consecrated had been stolen.

Silas attempted to have a conversation with a boy called Milivoj who was digging the graves and completely embarrassed himself. 

While heading to the inn, the group walked past the Burgomaster's mansion and saw a bright pink flash of energy from the attic. Silas recognised the flash as a spell going off and was immediately intrigued.

Outside the inn the party saw a colourful caravan with "Rictavio's Carnival of Wonders" painted on the side. Silas attempted to look inside but bailed when he heard a growl from behind the bars.

The party met the owners of the Bluewater Inn, Urwin and Danika Martikov and their sons - all wereravens like Falkon. 

Falkon arrived soon after looking battered, carrying an ancient looking book. He had apparently defeated the last hag by himself.  

Falkon took them up to his room in the cramped attic called the Raven Loft. Silas asked hesitantly, “Do you… pay to live here?” And Falkon said “No.” To which Silas replied, “Good.” 

Benoit helped translate the parts of the book that were in druidic. They learnt about the history of the valley, including the Delmorians and the Fanes. 

Falkon asked the party for assistance with the druids who had taken over the Wizard of Wines. 

Later that night, the party met Karl and Nikolai Wachter and played a game of cards with them, learning more about the political situation in Vallaki, the Burgomaster’s family and the constant festivals. 

That night Benoit had a dream of the Gulthias tree burning and spoke with a ghostly dusk elf woman called Petrina. 

The following morning the party met the owner of the caravan, Rictavio. He told them he had a monkey but gave it to Blinksy the toymaker. 

BURGOMASTER'S ATTIC

On the way back to the church of St Andral, Silas begged the party to peek in the attic at the Burgomaster’s mansion. Through various means of levitating and flying the party broke into the top floor. 

The door on the far end had a ward that electrocuted Luci when he went to knock. 

Inside the party found a workshop belonging to the baronet, Viktor Vallakovich. After snooping around and admiring the skeleton cats, the party discovered a faulty teleportation circle. It was only when Luci tried to destroy the circle with a dagger that Viktor revealed himself from his invisibility spell and attempted to stop him.  

He immediately said he would have us all arrested for breaking in since he was the Burgomaster’s son. The party had a long and tense conversation with him, discussing his experiments to find a way out of Barovia. He talked about exploding a few of his maids in the process and the treatment of his once promised fiancee, Stella Wachter, who he modified her memory into believing she was a cat. He mentioned important books and information at Wachterhaus (The Wachter family’s home) that he believed would be useful. 

Silas was ecstatic about meeting another wizard for the first time; the party was less enthusiastic. 

At the church, Luci and Benoit found a fish hook near where the bones had been stolen from. The party learnt that Milivoj was the one who took the bones and that would usually help a fisherman called Bluuto out on Lake Zarovich. 

LAKE ZAROVICH

Travelling to the Lake, the party stopped by the Vistani camp There they found out about the missing 7 year old oracle, Arabelle. 

The party spoke briefly with Kassimir the dusk elf, Benoit mentioning the dreams with Petrina and learnt that she was once Kassimir’s sister and engaged to Strahd. He asked for assistance with ancient knowledge at the Amber Temple.

At the lake the party managed to stop Bluuto attempting to sacrifice Arabelle to the lake by throwing her overboard in a sack.

Silas levitated him and in his dying breaths he said “The feast��two days” before biting his tongue and dying. Great.

After bringing Arabelle home safely, she gave the part Tarokka readings which mentioned a tome of ancient knowledge, a sword of sunlight and an artefact of protection.

FESTIVAL OF THE BLAZING SUN 

The party returned to Vallaki before the festival of the blazing sun. 

That night Silas received a dream where he spoke directly to Strahd - Strahd gave Silas the ability to finally open his fathers spellbook. Scared of the party’s reaction, Silas decided not to tell anyone about it. 

Shortly after the dream, Silas snuck out at 3am to go over to the Burgomasters mansion. He levitated up to Viktor’s bedroom and asked if he would be interested in sharing spells. It was only when Silas mentioned his father's spell book that Viktor took an interest. 

The next day was the festival of the blazing sun. The party attended the bizarre display hosted by Vargus the Burgomaster and a very sad band. 

From the crowd Silas tried to get Viktor’s attention on the podium. Viktor did a spinning motion with his finger telling Silas to spin in a circle, which he did immediately to Viktor's amusement. Luci hurriedly told Silas to cut it out. 

It started to rain as the guards failed to light the wicker sun, and when one guard started to laugh, Vargus ordered him to be killed. 

 Before the party could intervene they quickly discovered that the Wachter brothers had released a sabertooth tiger into the streets, one that was apparently in Rictavio’s caravan. 

After a lot of running around, rescuing an injured Nikolai and herding the creature out of town, they managed to get the tiger back into the caravan. 

Rictavio told them he would be leaving, before giving a very stern talking to Silas where his poor deception revealed he had spoken with Strahd. Rictavio promptly removed a tracking spell that Strahd had put on Silas’s spellbook. 

WACHTERHAUS + LORD VASILI

Taking advantage of the fact that Nikolai had gotten hurt, the party went over to Wachterhaus to check on him while also snooping around. Silas got his arm stuck in the fence while trying to get inside. 

Karl informed them that his mother currently had a guest staying over called Lord Vasili von Holz.

After meeting Vasili who was surprised to find the entire party snooping around the small library, he invited them all to have dinner with him.

The party had a pleasant evening with Lady Wachter and Vasili, hearing all about Lady Wachter’s dissatisfaction with the current leader of Vallaki. 

The next day the party discovered that Silas's spellbook could directly copy the contents of other books within a 8-10 ft radius. This included important documents from Wachterhaus and all of Luci’s personal diary which Silas had been reading secretly every night. 

Reading his father's book, Silas also found out that his father was Otto (Inventor of Otto's Irresistible Dance), a famous wizard and bard who was close friends of Mordenkainen. Silas was utterly humiliated that his father was a Bard Wizard but was more gutted to realise that Otto had died 2 years prior at the hands of Vecna. 

THE FEAST 

With no new leads on the missing bones, the party went on a search through Vallaki. Silas decided to attach his spellbook to Falkon in raven form so he could fly around and look for any clues with a detect magic spell.  

Finding a strong source of magic, the party very aggressively barged into the coffin maker's shop at the edge of town. Once again terrorising and killing an elderly man as he ran through Benoit's Spike Groth spell.  

Not only did the party manage to find the bones, but also an entire shop filled with vampire spawn. 

An intense combat ensued where the party was completely swarmed. Silas managed to dimension door out with Ismark while Luci jumped from the second floor skewering a vampire spawn and crushing it with the weight of his armour. 

The city fell into complete chaos with buildings on fire and citizens being killed by vampires left and right. This was “The Feast” that Bluuto had mentioned. 

The party ran into Vasili who was protecting a group of children from two vampire spawn. With his help the party managed to get to the Church of St Andral just in time to meet Anastrasya, a full blooded vampire and one of Strahd’s wives.

She killed Father Lucien in front of the party and then turned her attention to Vasili where she called him “Dear” and exposed him as Strahd Von Zarovich in disguise. (We all screamed at the table) 

To protect the party, Luci handed over the bones to Strahd and in return he promised to clean up Anastrasya’s mess. 

Due to a poor perception check from Luci and many bad rolls in the future, Luci continues to see Strahd in his handsome Vasili form throughout the campaign.

The party facing the aftermath of The Feast

LEAVING VALLAKI 

Safely back at the Bluewater Inn, Luci had a dream where he spoke with Strahd in the church of St Andral. Strahd handed the ownership of the church over to Luci and asked him to fix it up.

Silas insisted that the party should allow Viktor to travel with them, saying "I need to bring him along to teach me more spells." And Ismark replied snarkily "Oh yeah? He's going to teach you spells? How is he going to teach you? Is he going to teach you orally? with tongue?!"  And Silas flew into a complete fit of rage and embarrassment.

The party investigated Wachterhaus again, finding the long dead body of Lady Wachter's husband hidden in their bedroom but also finding the Tome of Strahd in a box of bones.  

The party told Karl and Nikolai about the body and encouraged them to get out of town and head to Kresk.

In the chaos that followed, the party made plans to leave town as soon as possible, with their sights set on Argynvostholt where Luci’s tarokka reading spoke of a sword of sunlight. 

With a revolt happening against the Burgomaster, Silas told Viktor to meet them at the Bluewater Inn. He waited for Viktor like a nervous war wife while Luci and Ismark went to look at Luci’s new church. On the way there they saw Lady Wachter leading a mob against the Burgomaster and his wife and allowed them to carry on. While the Burgomaster’s Mansion was set on fire, Luci and Ismark continued to clean up the church and had a heart to heart conversation.

Falkon dragged Viktor into the inn by the scruff of his collar and with no home left to return to, Silas invited Viktor to travel with them. He very quickly agreed to tag along. The party were mostly outraged but Luci firmly said "Make your choices, Silas."

That night Strahd talked with Luci again in his dreams, this time by a lake from Luci’s hometown. The following morning Luci woke up with an invitation for the entire party to a dinner at Castle Ravenloft scheduled in the next few days. Ireena adamantly insisted that she wanted to go to give Strahd a piece of her mind.

Silas was becoming increasingly jealous that Strahd was now only contacting Luci.

The party found a scroll of resurrection that was left by Rictavio. The scroll was given to Ireena to hold onto. 

THE ROAD TO ARGYNVOSTHOLT 

With a huge travelling party consisting of Falkon, Viktor, Ismark, Ireena, Luci, Benoit and Silas, the group grabbed new winter clothes, got their weapons silvered and bought horses from the Vistani for their trip up the mountain.

Just off the main road out of Vallaki, Luci, Ismark and Benoit stumbled on a body strung up between two trees, yellow flowers and fungi growing from his chest with druidic writing written across the stones. 

When a storm started to get too strong, the group found shelter in an abandoned cabin.

The party took some time to read Strahd’s tome (We are using the interactive tome) learning about his childhood and the battle of Argynvostholt. They learnt about his right hand Rahadin the dusk elf and his best friend Alek Guilym who looked not exactly the same but very similar to Luci. They found information about his brother Sergei, the sun sword that he wielded and Tatyana, a woman identical to Ireena. 

Within the tome, Benoit had a very important conversation with a woman called Lysaga who he quickly realised was still alive from hundreds of years ago and was very aware that she was communicating through a book.

Silas asked Viktor if he would form a wizard alliance with him.

On the way up the side of the mountain, the group met a Vistani man called Arrigal, who told them he was looking for a horse thief called Esmerelda - The party learnt that Esmerelda is a vampire hunter and was once a student of Van Richten. (Silas's favourite author and famous monster hunter)

Inside Argynvostholt the group stole a bunch of stuff from Godfrey Guilym’s room and absolutely decimated some revenants in an overkill combat (This incredible combat involved Luci’s insanely strong addon damage, a moonbeam spell revealing Falkon’s true form and a double fireball spell from Silas and Viktor.) 

In one of the hallways, the party saw a line of marble busts. For a moment one appeared as Benoit's decapitated head. Benoit called Strahd pathetic for trying to scare him. They realised that Strahd harbours a lot of resentment as he is unable to contact Benoit through dreams like he can with the rest of the party.

Speaking with the revenant of Godfrey (And sheepishly returning his stolen property), he let us know that the revenant of Vladimir Horngaard was the one who had the sun sword. 

The party had an absolutely agonising (and incredible) combat against Vladimir. Luci was caught in close quarters and was pinned to the ground, having his head smashed against the ground over and over by Vladimir, leaving him dead. 

Once Vladimir was defeated and the sun sword obtained, Ireena used the scroll of resurrection to bring Luci back to life (He now has a fear of fire). Ismark being unable to stop Vladimir in the fight took Luci's death very personally.

The party returned back to Arrigal’s campsite in silence, getting a short sleep in before they were expected to be picked up for their dinner at Castle Ravenloft. 

Strahd’s black carriage arrived and the party gave the tome to Falkon for safe-keeping and agreed to meet back up again at the Wizard of Wines. 

Although he was not invited, Viktor decided that he was also going to attend the dinner and faced the realisation that he was no longer the Burgomaster's son. 

DINNER WITH STRAHD

The exhausted party arrived at the gates of Castle Ravenloft and were met by Rahadin. Just being within his "deathly choir" aura took a bunch of hit points off Silas. 

They met Strahd at the grand staircase, Luci still completely covered in his own blood. 

Strahd was unimpressed by their attire and with Viktor being an uninvited guest. He informed them he had already selected new clothes for them to wear and that Rahadin would escort them to the guest wing.

When Silas hesitated to follow Rahadin up the stairs, the deathly choir got louder, making Silas collapse on the stairs. 

In the guest wing they met Escher, Strahd's newest consort. They had already heard a lot about Escher from Falkon as they were dating before Escher decided to leave and turn into a vampire.

The party in their dinner outfits 

After changing into new clothes, Escher refused to take the group downstairs.

When the party arrived in the dining hall by themselves, Strahd had very purposefully arranged the seating plan. Ireena on his left and Luci directly on his right. 

Silas’s jealousy of Strahd's attention towards Luci was starting to boil over at this point.

At the table they met the other brides, Ludmilla and Anastrasya again - they were informed that Volenta was currently out.

After directing Ireena to sit, Strahd said “This seat is for Ireena’s brother.” And when Ismark went to sit, Strahd instructed “No, no. not you.” and made him sit one seat over. 

As the dinner started, a new person entered the room, a bodyguard working for Strahd called Izek. He was very confused when Strahd told him to dine with us. The party discovered that Izek was Ireena’s real biological brother who she believed had died when they were children. 

The very awkward dinner continued.

Benoit started up a charming conversation with Ludmilla. Since she wanted to discuss some more sensitive topics, Ludmilla stood and told Strahd very boldly she would be getting more wine from downstairs with Benoit. Strahd watched in silent fury as they left the room.

After Luci accidentally mentioned that he had died earlier that day, Strahd stood from the table and politely asked if Luci would join him for a walk since he had something to show him. 

Luci turned to Silas as he stood and said “I’ll just be a few minutes” and Silas replied with the most sarcastic and acidic “Sure.” 

With Benoit and Luci both gone from the table, completely filled with rage and jealousy, Silas grabbed a wine bottle and began to drink heavily. 

PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS

Strahd had a very intimate conversation with Luci, taking him to his study and showing him the brand new red and black platemail armour that he had commissioned specifically for him.

Luci bashfully replied saying “Red is not really my colour.” Strahd smiled and said, “Well that’s not true, you looked beautiful in red when you arrived here.” referring to when Luci arrived covered in blood. Strahd casually offered Luci the idea of companionship and the opportunity to do good work in Barovia, and Luci hesitated leaving the answer vague but not turning down the offer down completely. 

Benoit downstairs in the wine cellar saw the dead body of Milivoj and a number of others strung up in the basement, blood being drained from their bodies and into wine barrels.

He took note but continued his conversation with Ludmilla, asking her what she would do if Strahd was no longer in the picture and organised to meet up with her in the library after dinner to discuss further.

Drunk Silas started to pick fights with Ismark, asking if everyone was going to let Luci get away with this.

Silas demanded that Izek take him and Viktor to look at Strahd’s Library.

In the library Viktor started to hunt through books while Silas had a really pleasant and sobering conversation with Izek. Learning that he seemed to be a very kind hearted man in a difficult situation. He even asked “What's a wizard?” to Silas’s absolute surprise and horror. 

Silas offered to lend some of his books to Izek, asked about his job and if there was a chance he’d be able to travel with them for a short time,with the hope he could speak properly with Ireena.

After Viktor found castle floor plans, Silas attempted a high five but since neither of them had ever done one before, they ended up just touching their palms together for a weird amount of time before both awkwardly shrugging it off. 

Benoit, Ludmilla, Luci and Strahd arrived back to realise three people were no longer at the table.

As the library trio were about to leave, Izek opened the door to reveal Strahd standing in the hallway.

Izek immediately took the fall for Silas and lied saying that he offered to take them to the Library. Strahd told Izek and Viktor to leave and Viktor left Silas behind without even a second glance. 

Strahd offered Silas the role of his successor and Silas's response was extremely sceptical. Strahd also mentioned that apparently the famous monster hunter Van Richten wants to kill Silas since he has Strahd's Tome. Silas is Van Richten's biggest fan and was extremely concerned and confused about this information.  

The party all returned to the table. Luci asked Ismark if he was doing alright, and Ismark looked at Luci baffled saying "Why is it when something bad happens to you, you're always asking me if I'm alright? You're the one who just died."

Silas started an argument that Luci's death was more traumatic for him because he had to watch it happen.

After dinner Strahd decided to give a tour of the castle, leaving Viktor alone at the table with the brides. 

As they were leaving the dining room Strahd pulled Benoit aside and threatened him saying “Conspire with my wife again and I’ll have you killed.” Benoit stared him down defiantly said “Ok. Sure.” 

During the tour, out of spite Benoit revealed to everyone that he had found Milivoj dead and strung up in the wine cellar. Strahd furiously decided that the tour was over and that Izek would escort the party to their rooms for the night. 

AFTER DINNER CHAOS 

The post dinner conversations were very tense, the party sharing what Strahd had said to them. While Viktor was away the party raised concerns about his lack of participation in the fight that led to Luci’s death, to which Silas was very defensive.

Benoit went to talk privately with Ludmilla in the Library. He learnt more about the Druids at Yester Hill and the location of his mentor. Benoit very casually asked if she'd let him stay the night with her and having already endeared himself, she gave him a once over and nodded calmly allowing him to follow her to her room. (We all started to cheer for Benoit at the table!)

Luci decided to go and speak with Strahd alone to confront him about the all lies he had told him in his numerous dreams. When Luci showed up to Strahd's bedchambers, Escher was immediately kicked out by Strahd.

Strahd spoke with Luci, skillfully turning around every lie and positioning himself as lonely and sympathetic, endearing himself to Luci even more. At one point Strahd cast modify memory on Luci in order to make sure Luci believed him, spinning the story that the others were simply just jealous of him. Strahd offered a hand to Luci again, asking him to stay the night. Luci agreed and slept with Strahd. 

When Silas found out that Luci had gone to Strahd and wasn’t coming back for the night, he sent Luci the angriest sending spell saying “You’re an idiot, a fucking traitor and a waste of a perfectly good resurrection scroll.” Silas got no reply. 

After speaking with Ireena and Ismark about the state of the party, Silas numbly sat with Viktor in a spare bedroom. Silas ripped into Viktor questioning him about leaving Silas alone with Strahd. He reminded Viktor that without Silas, he would be abandoned by the party immediately so if he wanted to stay he needed to think of someone besides himself.

Viktor apologised and after some more conversations he admitted that he had witnessed his parents being stoned to death and that maybe he wasn’t completely alright after Vallaki.

They had a heart to heart, Silas telling him about his own situation with his abusive mother and Viktor telling Silas he was an idiot for believing that Van Richten wanted to kill him.

They spent the remainder of the evening studying together.

THE NEXT MORNING

Benoit and Luci sheepishly returned to the guest wing the following morning, walking into the room where Ismark, Ireena, Silas and Viktor sat waiting for them. 

Silas completely flew off the handle at both of them, Benoit also getting berated but not nearly as severely as Luci. 

Luci tried to explain the situation, sharing his belief that perhaps Strahd wasn’t as bad as everyone painted him as but was quickly and harshly scorned by Silas. Further pushing what Strahd had said about everyone being against Luci into his mind and dividing the party. 

Luci informed everyone that Strahd had granted Izek a short leave for him to travel with us. 

Silas discovered that he was unable to contact Falkon through sending spell and was worried something had happened to him and the tome.

To the surprise of everyone except for Silas, Ismark announced that he and Ireena would actually be going back to Barovia Village for a short time for their own safety. They wished the party luck and said that perhaps they would reconvene in Kresk. 

With the absence of Ireena and Ismark and the weighty understanding of why they had left, the atmosphere in the carriage ride back was horrendous and more arguments insued.

Luci swore that he would never do anything to put Ireena in danger and before Silas could argue back, Viktor interrupted saying “No. No Silas, he’s right…he’d fuck anyone to protect Ireena!” which made Silas laugh harder than he ever has in his life, while Luci and Benoit sat in heated silence. 

Art of Falkon and Izek by our incredible DM - @oneirotect

WIZARD OF WINES

The carriage dropped them off at the outskirts of the Wizard of Wines. The new, strange party were united in their goal of hopefully finding and recovering Falkon and Strahd's Tome.  

Luci donned his incredible new armour to the absolute horror of Silas. Luci's old armour was destroyed in the combat with Vladimir so he argued back that its better than no armour at all.

Travelling off the path and following another large raven, the party met the remainder of the Martikov Family who own the winery.

After explaining the situation, Falkon's uncle Elvir guessed that Falkon had decided to do a quick detour and deal with a hag in Berez.

Elvir invited himself along and only a few hours later mentioned that he couldn't fight but that the party could protect him.

The party made their way into the swamp to rescue Falkon.

This is where we last left off in game and if you have made it this far, thank you so much for reading such a long breakdown of our campaign! If you have any questions feel free to ask and again thank you so much for showing interest and support for our game, it means so much to all of us!

[laurefindele-thegolden]

I've seen so many posts the past few days where people are asking if it's worth continuing The Rings of Power or even starting it.

And as someone who hated this show with a burning passion to start with (but then had a complete 180) let me give you a few pointerss

1. STOP COMPARING IT TO PETER JACKSONS WORK!

This is like the key point. They're two separate works of art, by different people. One is focused on specific books as source material, the other is using an overall story as its source material with a few passages or pages from other books. So they have to maybe twist things a bit, add stories to stretch it out. I mean HELL PJ himself did that, removed many things from LOTR changed things up. Like Arwen did fuck all in the books really, but PJ decided to change that and give her things to do. And I don't think I have to delve into the mess that was the Hobbit. What I'm saying is, they're two different works of art, made by different people, set during different ages in ME, and it's different source material.

2. "oh but the inaccuracies!"

This kinda also goes with the above, even Peter Jackson's works have inaccuracies and they had the rights to the whole text. And if it will help you to separate the two maybe view the Rings of Power as a fanfic? Or just a completely different thing, a work of fiction in its own right, ignoring the previous lore.

3. The Hair??!!

Okay sure that was one of the things for me, what do you mean that's Finrod? (To be fair that one sill hurts). However, for the majority of elves Tolkien never specified that all elves have long hair. And second of all, I am not sure if this is true cause I've only seen it mentioned on twitter but allegedly there were wig shortages after the pandemic so the production team got wigs for key characters and asked other actors to grow out their hair. And now they just kinda have to roll with it

4. It's Boring

Okay the first two episodes were also a bit of a slow burn for me but just get through it because it gets better. Also the costumes and cinematography is fantastic in the show. So really it is worth watching especially that S2 is looking to be intense and amazing.

5. Oh but why is this character acting like this?

This goes to part 1, don't compare to Peter Jackson movie characters. I mean even they had their flaws! But this is the second age, these characters are at different points in their lives, dealing with other things that you know in the long run teach them things and in turn could lead to make them become the way they are in the third age. And also if your only knowledge about these characters comes from LOTR maybe it's worth trying to delve into the Silmarillion and other texts about the First Age because it explains a lot

To add to this at the end, don't discredit TROP because it is a great show.

[lookinghalfacorpse]

Thinking Affections again, and idk if this counts as a prompt or not, but in itwall you mentioned how cPhil constantly touches cDreams hair to calm him down and is just sth he likes so just that being a their thing they do when cuddling or sth is just phil petting and massaging his head

anything can be a prompt if i brainrot hard enough

/dsmp /rp

Dream wasn't sleeping well.

Sleep was always a fickle, delicate thing with him. There were plenty of nights where his exhaustion would take over and he would sleep soundly, especially early on during his time at the cottage, but there were also long periods where he'd barely sleep at all. He would wake from nightmares and seizures, or he'd simply tremble on his mattress for hours and hours, unable to slow his heartrate from its anxious pace. Em helped him to feel safe those nights, but even she couldn't keep his fears at bay completely. For as loving as the dog was, she couldn't stop someone from coming in the night to drag him back into the hell he escaped from. The hell he planned to return to someday. He laughed, sometimes, at the odd predicament he created for himself.

He procrastinated sleep by reading in the living room.

Techno gave him some shitty novel about an underground culture of elves. It was entertaining enough. He sat on the floor with a dog on his lap, leaning against the couch, and pulled his hair from his face. He had to tilt the book forward so the dim light of the fireplace could illuminate the page.

He heard Philza sit on the couch behind him.

The old man hummed thoughtfully before threading his fingers through Dream's long hair, pushing it behind his ears. "Might be less annoying if I braid it," he offered.

"I'm gonna take it out before bed," Dream replied, "but go ahead."

"It's my pleasure, mate." Phil's voice edged close to a whisper. He began carefully selecting some strands of hair from Dream's hairline and drawing them back, letting his fingertips trail along the boy's scalp. Dream shivered at the touch, feeling his skin erupt into goosebumps. "You should be sleeping," Phil continued.

The offer to braid his hair was a trick from the start; Phil wasn't doing anything that seemed close to a hairstyle. Instead, he rubbed and massaged along Dream's head, sometimes scratching with his fingertips. The book slowly dropped to his lap as he couldn't focus on the words anymore. His eyes fluttered closed.

"In... In the prison," Dream started, "Quackity liked to grab my hair. He'd grab it, like, in the front, and slam my head on the ground."

Phil's fingers trailed softly along the back of his skull. "Dream..."

"Sam hated when he did that. My skull would crack, and it would bleed a lot."

Phil could surely feel the bumps and valleys along his skin. They were hard to miss. He would feel rough scars and some patches of flaky, dry skin. Maybe some sharp lines where a crack healed. Dream's hair has been a source of frustration and humiliation for a long time; he hated that Quackity could feel the thick mats, the tangles, the spots of blood he couldn't wash out.

He felt Phil plant a kiss on the top of his head.

"Join me on the couch?"

Dream would spend the night there, on the couch, lying on top of Philza with his head on the old man's chest, sighing at the sensation of his head being massaged until he fell asleep.

[maplewozapi]

Hello, I have a question, and probably a strange one. The short version: any tips on how do I and other writers should approach naming Lakota-based characters? Are there any good sources, that can be trusted?

The long version: so I'm making a story where one of characters comes from a nation based of Lakota. Since all main characters are dragon riders, I figured it wouldn't be odd for them to be one too. But I'm not sure how do I go about native people and dragons combination in terms of names. If I'm know what do I do with the rest of the crew but here I feel lost. There are not much sources online about Lakota naming convention avilable in my native language but I'm trying to do my best in what it comes about research. So recently I started digging in English. But not all online sourses seems to be relatable. So I decided I should better find a Lakota person and ask directly, regardless of how stupid I may look. Because one of the last things I want to do, is calling a character or their dragon "ten fighting bear asses" or something just as ridiculous (or, worse - offensive) by an accident.

Ok I’m gonna use this to talk about several things because time and time again I get asked this question over and over, and the out come is always the same, that there’s a deep rooted problem with how people write native people in fantasy. For one thing I’m not sure how you are even representing Lakota people in your story, and you are just going to call these characters Lakota names in English? Do they talk English? Then what does this nation of "Lakota inspired fantasy people" even look like? Are they backed dropped with elves and dwarfs? Why is it that not just Lakota but any native nation is a back drop for a fantasy world? Then there’s the fact that the Lakota tribes are made up of seven sub tribes and then itself is apart of a seven group tribe. You can’t just up root a REAL LIFE people and remove them from what makes them them. You aren’t the only one I have to talk about this with and I end up getting ghosted by the people asking for help because they end up realizing they can’t actually write this weird Frankenstein story of native people. It’s a lot more nuanced to writing about native people and it takes collaboration with people to make a genuine story. Idk if people disconnect us from our land and people just haven’t realized WE ARE NORTH AMERICA, SOUTH AMERICA, you just can’t take us away from our history, what we are apart of and then if you are including one tribe where’s the rest of them? I wanna bring up Xiran Jay Zhao videos because I really think it brings up this whole issue with nitpicking cultures and misrepresenting them. No hard feelings or anything but so many authors come to me for advice and their whole stories and works just crumble and fall apart because they just don’t understand and can’t, you’ll never have a native person perspective. I honestly think instead of forcing it and writing from bull shit you don’t know is a reliable source then maybe you should step back and learn about native people, support their writings, and enjoy their work and authenticity./gen

Here’s a great book focusing on dragon riders, completely from a Wampanoag perspective written by Wampanoag author.

I am so glad you have an interest in our culture and I have no hard feelings about misunderstandings./pos

[room-surprise]

EXTERNAL FICTIONAL INFLUENCES IN DUNGEON MESHI

We know that Ryoko Kui spent considerable time at the beginning of working on Dungeon Meshi doing research and planning the series. Kui constantly references real world culture, history and mythology, but she also occasionally references other fictional works and fantasy genre staples, as well as real-world philosophy.

FICTIONAL INFLUENCES: FANTASY, RPGS AND VIDEO GAMES

There are three major fictional influences on Dungeon Meshi that Kui cites: the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Dungeons & Dragons, and the Wizardry video game series.

All of these works borrow heavily from the real world themselves (and both D&D and Wizardry borrow from Tolkien), so in many cases similarities between them and Dungeon Meshi are simply the result of Kui going back to the same ancient source material as her predecessors. Other times the ideas Kui is influenced by are things that have become so entrenched in pop culture they are ubiquitous in the fantasy genre, so though the idea may technically originate in Tolkien, D&D, or Wizardry, Kui may not be purposefully borrowing from them.

J.R.R. TOLKIEN

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was an English writer and philologist, a scholar of linguistics. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s work has had such a huge impact on culture that most fantasy fiction created after him borrows either intentionally or unintentionally from his work. Kui stated in a Q&A in Korea that Lord of the Rings is one of her favorite fantasy stories.

Elements in Dungeon Meshi that originate in Tolkein are: Hobbits (halflings) and how they are depicted, the idea that elves and dwarves are two distinct races in conflict with each other as well as some of their identifying traits, and the fictional metal, mithril.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game originally created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974. The game was derived from miniature wargames, and was heavily influenced by the work of Tolkien and other Western fantasy authors such as Jack Vance. D&D was the beginning of modern role-playing games, and had a huge impact on video games and fantasy fiction in all media.

Because of this, obviously D&D came up a lot when Kui was researching the history of fantasy, so she read the rule books, replay novels, and studied some other games inspired by D&D.

The biggest single contributions D&D has made to pop culture is the concept of a dungeon as a place where characters in a story go to explore, fight enemies, find treasure, and gain power or glory, and that a group of people with different specialized skills will join each other as a “party” in order to traverse a dungeon.

The important thing to note here is that “dungeon” only exists in the title of Dungeon Meshi in Japanese, and using the word “dungeon” in the main text of the story is a change made in translation. In Japanese, the characters only refer to the dungeons as labyrinths, which is a word with a specific historic and mythological meaning, completely different from what fantasy fiction dungeons have come to mean.

So although Kui takes advantage of the word “dungeon,” and the unique connotations it’s grown due to D&D, it’s usage is completely external to the world and culture of Dungeon Meshi, it is a title for readers outside of the Dungeon Meshi world, not the characters within it.

Elements in Dungeon Meshi that originate in D&D are: the word and concept of “dungeon”, some monster concepts, such as different colored dragons having different magical/elemental abilities, and having eastern archetypes such as samurai, ninja and martial artists existing alongside western archetypes like knights and wizards. Kui mentions “dark elves”, which are something that D&D invented, however Kui states that they don’t exist in Dungeon Meshi, and that “dark elf” is just a slur non-elves use for elves they think are bad.

WIZARDRY

The computer role-playing game named Wizardry was released in 1981. Heavily influenced by Dungeons & Dragons, Wizardry in turn influenced many other games, and fantasy fiction in general. The series is particularly popular in Japan, to the point where many Wizardry games were made for the Japanese market exclusively, and many modern Japanese fantasy works can directly trace their roots to Wizardry.

Kui watched her father play the original Wizardry when she was a child, and she cites Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge specifically as a major source of inspiration for Dungeon Meshi.

Elements in Dungeon Meshi that originate in Wizardry are: kobolds being dog-men (I’ll provide a more detailed explanation in Chapter 8), the idea of returning to the dungeon to revive someone who had died on a previous journey, and the difficulty and danger of teleportation magic.

Although many of the concepts that inspired Kui are not unique to Wizardry, Wizardry is most likely where Kui first encountered them. For example, there is a plotline in Wizardry VI that has some elements in common with Dungeon Meshi: a lost/abandoned kingdom run by immortals driven insane by their immortality, including a wizard who is controlling the kingdom with the infinite knowledge he gained from the Cosmic Forge pen. The Cosmic Forge pen is also similar to the demon in Dungeon Meshi, since both can grant wishes, and they both have a secret price for using them.

However, I think the most interesting things Wizardry inspired in Dungeon Meshi are less concrete, for example the game mechanics involved in teleportation, or returning to the dungeon to revive a dead party member.

The first Wizardry game was infamous for its extreme difficulty. In the event of their entire party being killed, gameplay could not be resumed; however, players could create a new party, start the game over, and use their new party to recover the bodies and items of their previous one, and revive their old characters if they wished. Doing this was extremely tedious and difficult, but it was also a common part of gameplay, so it’s easy to imagine a young Kui watching her father do it at least once, and that it left a strong impression on her.

Another thing that would have left a strong impression is the way teleportation worked in the original Wizardry. The game lacked an automap feature, which forced players to manually draw a map for every level on graph paper while they played, this was so essential that the publishers included graph paper in the game box. In order to successfully teleport, the player had to enter both the level and target coordinates from their self-drawn map, and so it was easy to get killed by accidentally teleporting into a trap or into a wall.

This sort of careful observation and planning seems like something Kui is fascinated by, as she often shows this kind of attention to detail in Dungeon Meshi, and she repeatedly addresses the risk of teleportation magic, and the value of making maps and carefully documenting your surroundings and experiences in the dungeon.

(This is an excerpt from my essay on cultural and linguistic references in Dungeon Meshi)

[crossdressingdeath]

Care to elaborate on the dislike of "what they did with (Morrigan) in DA:I"?

Simple, snarky answer: I play Lavellan.

More complete answer: Morrigan in DAO could be kind of shitty, she didn't have a lot of respect for... anyone and seemed to make decisions solely based on whether or not they were evil (Morrigan bby please leaving everyone in Redcliffe to die isn't pragmatic when we still have to go through Redcliffe), but she was sheltered and still learning how the world worked so it was understandable, even sympathetic in places. Morrigan in DAI has been out in the world for ten years and has only gotten shittier. In general I'm not fond of the way that the recurring DAO characters apparently haven't grown as people in ten years (hardened King Alistair, a character specifically mentioned as being a good king, writing diplomatic letters to someone he met for at most five minutes like the recently-freed-from-heavy-indoctrination nineteen year old he hasn't been for a decade especially irritates me), it's clear that Bioware is more invested in cashing in on nostalgia than they are in developing these characters as characters, but Morrigan? Bioware, I know negative character development is still development but it maybe wasn't the best idea.

Let me put it this way. In Witch Hunt Morrigan steals a book from the Dalish so that she can learn about eluvians. This is kind of shitty behaviour, but it's Morrigan levels of shitty and she does leave the book outside the eluvian, so the Dalish as far as we see have reclaimed that book and the knowledge in it, and also they had it for years and so logically knew the things in that book already. Definitely they had access to it. And it's also important to keep in mind that that book is the only information we can confirm that Morrigan actually has on eluvians in canon; she's never mentioned as finding any other source. And then in DAI she basically calls the Dalish morons the whole way through and claims that she (a human woman with literally zero connection to the Dalish or elves in general beyond maybe having some friends who are elves and also stealing from the Dalish that one time, the Flemeth situation doesn't count because we're given no reason to believe Morrigan ever for a moment even suspected the Mythal thing or that Flemeth wasn't human or to believe that Flemeth passed on any knowledge about the elves, and certainly not anything the Dalish didn't know) has more right to take this ancient elven font of knowledge sacred to a Dalish god than a Dalish elf does. This despite the fact that if you have the arcane knowledge perk you understand the Well better than her literally just by looking at it (she doesn't know the Well will put the drinker under a geas despite all her research, while Quiz only has to look at it and hear the whispers coming from it to figure that out). I've seen it described as humansplaining and... yeah that kind of describes what Morrigan does. If you play Lavellan she's just constantly really shitty to you about you wanting to engage with your own damn culture and claims she knows better because she read one book that you quite possibly also read. It's not entirely to do with her as a character, some of it is DAI's shitty writing and without it her arrogance could've been just a character trait that she could've moved past (let Lavellan and Solas troll her by straight up lying about the inscriptions in the temple and her going along with it because she won't admit that she can't read as much of it as she claims she can, please), but the way it's allowed to stand unchallenged despite by all logic being horseshit really pisses me off. I don't trust Bioware not to double down on the "Oh this human woman understands this totally unrelated culture that she is in no way part of and has barely even studied way better than the people belonging to that culture do and deserves valuable ancient relics of their people more than them" thing, so I very much do not want to see her in any more DA games.

[lunastrophe]

I just got my hands on The Drow of the Underdark by Ed Greenwood. It is literally the best book I have read about the Drow. I was just wondering if you've ever read it or could point out any other good source books

Hello! Drow of the Underdark for 2e is a great start - there is also another book with the same title for 3.5e (A. Marmell, A. Pryor, R. J. Schwalb and G. A. Vaughan, Drow of the Underdark, 2007), although it is good to remember that drow lore from various editions can be different in some places.

As for other game accessories with drow lore, in Demihuman Deities for 2e (E. L. Boyd, 1998) there is a lot about drow pantheon. For Underdark in general, there is Drizzt Do'Urden's Guide to the Underdark for 2e (E. L. Boyd, 1999) and Underdark sourcebooks for 3e and 4e.

For Menzoberranzan, there is 4e sourcebook, Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue (B. R. James, E. Menge, 2012) and older Menzoberranzan for 2e, a part of boxed set (E. Greenwood, R. A. Salvatore, M. Leger, D. Niles, 1992).

Some general drow lore was also included in The Complete Book of Elves (C. McComb, 1993) for 2e.

In such game accessories, there is mostly "raw" lore - but a tremendous amount of lore-connected information can be also extracted from D&D novels, like The Legend of Drizzt series, or Starlight and Shadows trilogy, for example. They are good choice if you want to explore drow lore, but find typical D&D sourcebooks too boring 😉

[markantonys]

I’m one of the biggest haters of the fact that Galadriel and Elrond aren’t together, because narratively (not for silmarill, I’m sorry I’m not any kind of fan of Tolkien and most certainly not that kind of fan, but from the point of only the main books), they of course should be. I hate the Elrond married Galadriels daughter, I hate it with passion, and I think that it is only the truth because Tolkien couldn’t imagine a husband and wife who love each other but have to live separately. So I hope they’ll just make it Elrond/Galadriel and ignore the books. For me.

so, you think that a man and a woman who are very emotionally close Should Obviously Date? groundbreaking. if elrond was a woman, would you be saying that narratively she should of course be galadriel's love interest? 🤔

speaking from a pure show-only perspective, i love that their relationship isn't romantic. i love that the show is so free with displaying the depth of an m/f bestie duo's love and affection for each other without caring that viewers may cry Ship-Baiting. i love that they say "sometimes elf besties kiss each other on the mouth and if you assume that means romance, then that's on you" lmao. i love that they share so much emotional intimacy and physical affection and neither of them is Weird about it or is harboring a secret crush, nor does anyone around them tease them or say they're flirting with each other.

i was so struck by this beautiful gifset, which contains moments that out of context anyone would 100000% assume were romantic, but in context, they just aren't. there's no romance here, nor does there need to be, nor, frankly, should there be. taking this wonderful, rare example of a very intimate m/f friendship and turning it into Yet Another M/F Friends-To-Lovers Romance would be the most boring thing the show could possibly do.

though i do agree that coming from a show perspective, elrond marrying galadriel's not-yet-born daughter is weird as FUUUUUUUCK to me haha like i know elves have a completely different relationship with time than we do so To Them it's not weird, but the idea of elrond holding his future wife in his arms as his bestie's newborn baby and watching her grow up and then falling in love with her gives my mortal human self major ick. gonna need him to pull another "accidentally forgot to visit my friend for a really long time" and not see galadriel from the time she's pregnant until celebrian is a few centuries old. if i've heard correctly, i think the source material does have elrond & galadriel feeling like they're of different generations and elrond is a contemporary of celebrian rather than of galadriel, but since the show has gone a different route and made elrond & galadriel feel like the same generation, i highly highly doubt we will see elrond/celebrian happen in the show, or even see celebrian born at all; they'll probably leave all that as post-show happenings. because it's not weird to elves with their funky perception of time, but the audience are not elves, they are mortal humans, and it WOULD be very weird to them.

[rey-jake-therapist]

Hey. I simply wanna share my thoughts on this with someone. Not a Tolkien fan myself, I have always ignored everything Lord of the Rings related, tried to watch the movies and failed, everything seemed boring, even though I love dark fantasy, folklore, adventures and stuff. The only thing making me interested right now is the ROP portrayal of Sauron (am I a bad person? yes), so the controversy with the show also caught my attention and here's my useless take:

People of the fandom has been there for so long they literally turned “lore” into something sacred and holy. Sure, a lot of things there are inspired by Christianity (as a Christian, I quickly recognised it all after checking out the main worldbuilding points) but it's not the Bible! These books are fiction and it's nothing wrong with interpreting some events differently. Had to watch Galadriel scenes from the movies btw, and her “greatly desiring” the ring and then opposing Sauron in her dark form... makes much more sense if they previously had a personal story going on. So I see no problem here. But fans! If Tolkien himself returned from the dead and said Galadriel 1) isn't Mother Mary figure, more like Mary Magdalene 2) had loved Sauron in a twisted way and that's why she wasn't chilling with other elves in the elvish Eden those guys would never believed him and kept bitching. Ofc, they are free to do so, I just pains me.

Same happened to my favourite show, which made me evaluate a lot of things and change my life for the best, and most of “fans” hate it because it's against the idea they had it their heads for years. What's funny is that my show doesn't have any book source material, it's just a — unconventional a bit — biopic about a rock band frontman, produced and controlled in EVERY ASPECT by his best friend and soulmate. Who new him better than any of the fans. The show is brilliant and nothing like that has been done in our country before, yet 70% of what it gets is childish criticism.

So yeah, seeing ROP mistreated in a similar way makes me sad. I can't even tell my friends about the cons of this show, as most of them have already written on their blogs how awful and unworthy of anyone's time it is. Ugh, thank you for listening.

I hear you ! The most infuriating is that most of these people didn't even bother to watch the show. They just heard some YouTuber or TikToker trash the show and repeat what they hear.

I've also noticed that much of the criticism is made by haters who claim to be Tolkien fans, but who are really just fans of P Jackson's movies, and are certain that HE gave a faithful interpretation of the books while it's just... Not true ! Sauron was never described as a giant eyeball in the books, for a start, it was just the easiest way that P Jackson found to represent the fact that Sauron could see everything everywhere.

By doing so unfortunately he ripped off Sauron of everything that made him a fascinating character, and now those morons use the movie's depiction of Sauron to decide that Sauron always was a one dimensional character and completely ignore the fact that in season 1, he was in a repentance phase, hence not entirely manipulative and dishonest towards Galadriel.

And the same happens with Galadriel. The only person I know in real life watched it, but hated it saying she "can't forgive them for what they did to Galadriel", because she refuses to admit the idea that she can have been a warrior, with tendencies to be reckless and a tad immature. She wanted Cate Blanchett's Third Age Galadriel and won't have it any other way. Why ? Again because of PJ's movies. She didn't read the books ! When I told her that PJ invented the scene from the Hobbit where Galadriel faces Sauron in Dol Guldur, she was surprised but didn't care because at least it was Cate Blanchett looking beautiful and ethereal.

What is the show you mention in your ask ?

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/737771866482212864/one-thing-i-hate-in-modern-adaptations-is-when-ppl

This is actually kinda an interesting example of the weird tokenism that's currently being peddled in Hollywood for some time. You have a story where you actually have an under-represented group, but because it's the wrong kind we're just going to swap them so that you can visually see the difference, and so it fits our worldview in a completely different part of the world.

Let' me switch the sides for a second: Does Hollywood actually think that poc want to have the "leftover" roles from white characters? Do they honestly think that pocs feel more represented when being put into a story that didn't actually include them and doesn't feature their cultures and heritages, and doesn't even acknowledge them as a poc character in a white story? Do they honestly think that poc people want a white story, by a white author to represent them? That poc want to be stand ins for fantasy racism against fantasy creatures? This story features hate against magical creatures like elves... how about we just add in regular old racism again poc instead? As if the rule is that if there's racism, then pocs have to be victims of it, even if the story tells about fantastical racism. Why can't Poc simply exist in a story where they aren't victims of racism?

Especially if it ends up being such a waste of time and money like what Witcher ended up being, especially the "Origin" spin-off, made by people who hated the source material, and who hated and ousted on the one singular man who not only wanted to respect the source material, but even fought to have vital parts of the story respected until he couldn't anymore. Then they blame "We thought our audience were brainless mongrels so we didn't want to make it too complicated for their little stupid brains." Great, not only did you ruin one of the few stories that was by a Polish-Slav about Slavic and Polish folklore which already doesn't have much of a foothold, and wasn't the typical anti-Slavic Hollywood + "everything is Russia" storyline, but you also insulted the intelligence of your audiences, didn't actually give good rep to pocs, and you even managed to shit on the value of representing actual poc stories once again by giving them scraps.

I've also noticed this has started the stupid trend between fans, because instead of pointing out how stupid Hollywood is, and noticing it's Hollywood doing this shit, I see poc making fun that token-trend with comments "If a poc movie for pocs is made, by pocs and written by pocs, don't forget the token white character." Yeah, exactly we all see the problem don't we? That's why everyone clowns on it, but it's like people just kinda forget how stupid this trend is when it actually comes to throwing the hard critics at Hollywood. Where are the stories for the people who want to be represented as their own figures and stories for once? Without having a stupid token character because Hollywood thinks people are too dumb to identify or root for a character who doesn't look like them. We don't need useless token characters, we need stories that are made FOR the people, written for them, with care.

We want poc stories. We want black stories. Asian. Latine. Indigenous. Hell even Slavic. Whatever! Written by them for them, we want to see stories that can just BE these stories without the need for token characters awkwardly forced in. Tell me a story where the identity of the characters is respected and fully realized! Who needs a token character when you have actually stories where these characters actually get their stories told instead of being a footnote or a throwaway line? I want to watch a big blockbuster movie who's source was written by eg a black woman, about her culture, shaped by her experiences, and with black actors who are playing roles that were always for them. I don't want another "Hey this book was written by a white person, how about we just turn some random white characters poc and call it a day. Who cares if the author doesn't know how to write a poc experience, they'll just eat it anyway." I'm not saying that a person can't write about characters of a different ethnicity not their own either, especially if they actually do research and ask people of that ethnicity or find good resources, etc! Write what you want, put effort into it and your heart.

But we first need to set a precedents for authors to be able to write for themselves and their experiences tied to their identity, to get a voice and be featured above constantly using stories that weren't made for it. If the story was made for Polish slavs, then make it a story for polish slavs. If you want a high fantasy story with actual poc characters that was already part of the story, then go and find one of the thousands of books by various poc ethnicities that already cover that!

Bullshit excuses by Hollywood that poc stories don't sell are a fucking sham. The old fucks at the top just hate the idea of actually doing something for actual diversity, by giving poc people a chance to see their own stories on screen that they themselves have written.

--

[guiltycorp]

Just finished replaying Dragon Age II (first time i played it i was a teenager) and I have so many thoughts on Anders, as one does...

I think the centrist message of the game is strengthened many times by Anders being the only main character actively working to change the status quo of the story? When every other character opposes drastic change it feels like Anders is ‘betraying’ the core group by making those story-changing decisions on his own, and a random player’s allegiance will likely be to the mc and all of their chosen companions rather than those specific in-game groups like mages or elves. As Hawke, you can’t really directly participate one way or the other, you are simply giving your support to decisions made by the other characters, and so the first side to do something drastic is the one that feels like the more wrong one — narratively it’s of course more satisfying when it comes from the othered side (so, Qunari in Act 2, mages in Act 3).

Also, the nuance that the writers tried to include with numerous mentions of the mental toll of growing up in isolation against your will, the abuse that templars can easily cover up, swift executions — all of that is countered by blood magic and the existence of the Tevinter Imperium, and so again a random player walks away thinking ‘it’s a difficult situation but yes, perhaps there’s just no better solution for the mage problem’. Which is by design, of course, but leads to conclusions like 'ehh Anders only proved the other side right'. There's also of course the disconnect between the Chantry and the templars, the game is careful in painting the Chantry as 'blind to the abuse' rather than as the actual source of it. The Chantry came up with Magi Circles and the Templar Order is its military subdivision, but that can be easily overlooked when the local Grand Cleric was written as completely neutral despite her position of power, and so a major part of the audience reacts strongly to the destruction of a religious building as a parallel to modern real life burning of churches and mosques rather than recognizing the in-game context. Destroying the Chantry meant that Anders sought to change the system itself rather than targeting the symptoms (specific evil templars), and it is a much more powerful symbolical gesture in that way. As somebody who grew up in the faith, in one of those Circles, he is declaring that the Chantry failed him and others like him - he is not an outsider in this situation, no matter his current apostate status... And tbh I've always read Justice/Vengeance as more of an allegory than a straightforward demonic possession, pledging yourself wholly to the cause.

Also I have to mention… So Disco Elysium’s list of inspirations included the novel Germinal which is why I read it, and without spoiling too much I’ve been wondering if DA2 writers were also inspired by it. It’s a story about miners striking against their employers after being driven to it by abject poverty and hunger - everyone in the novel is aware that this strike is, unfortunately, beneficial to the company and so eventually the only available method of further protest is violence… There is an anarchist that reminded me of Anders, a man called Souvarine who has already been through a failed uprising (failed assassination of the russian tsar), who has a soft spot for a pet rabbit and who has a much better understanding of politics & socioeconomics than most other characters. Despite his educated background and delicate physical features, his personal ideology is alarmingly violent in a way that both impresses and scares the main character. He is absolutely not meant to be either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and the author carefully avoids casting judgement on his actions despite their severity - I am pretty sure that his role in the book is representative of political revolutionary movements as a whole.

I absolutely recommend the book, especially if you liked Disco Elysium or Les Mis (or have been an Anders defender for a while lol), it is less hopeful than either one of them but in a very sympathetic way, sadly still very true to our lives. Best thing I've read in years. But yeah idk ANYWAY, DA2 has way too many mining-related environments for me not to at least consider this might not be a coincidence ahaha, in which case it’s a shame the message of the novel was interpreted through a much more ‘fun fantasy video game both sides are always wrong’ lens.

[ackermental]

so i guess rop isn't as good as you thought it would be

Nonny, as far as adapting the source material, this show is an abomination. And people are right for calling it out on this absolute failure.

There are only two ways of saving it from being such a medicore experience for the viewers.

One is to cancel the show and start working on a retcon.

And the other is embracing the fact, that the showrunners, producers and writers completely don't feel the epic, mythological vibe of Tolkien's work.

To be quite honest, I don't think anyone working for western entertainment, especially in USA, is capable of creating epic, high fantasy story at the moment. If you ask me who should put Silmarillion into our screens I would say Chinese, they would grasp the concept nicely at least.

But Amazon just can't, for whatever reason. And they should stop lying to themselves. They don't have enough talent for this approach, so they should focus on writing the most bizzare plotlines one could think of.

At this moment I don't give a fuck about the elves. They suck ass. I care even less about the proto-Hobbits or men. They are all awful characters anyway.

Give me orcs unionizing. Give me presidential election between Adar and Sauron. Give me Sauron fucking Celebrimbor silly on the anvil. Give me Elrond lusting after Galadriel and then imprinting on Celebrian Twilight-style. Make Celebrian Sauron's daughter when we're at it. Give me an epic light and dark romance between Galadriel and Sauron, turn this shit into LBDAF. I want them to rule over Middle Earth.

Forget about the books, forget about the movies. Stop trying to connect the show to the lore, it's far beyond saving at this point. I don't care, you're boring me with those pathetic attempts.

I'm not watching this for epic battles or canonical events. They will never manage to live up to the original anyway.

I'm watching it to see Sauron and Galadriel fucking so much, that at the end of the season she'll be preggy with triplets. I'm watching it for Celebrimbor homoerotic vibes. I'm watching it for the orc babby and orcish democracy.

The 'good guys' are so horrible that I want them to die. Give me Gil-Galad being tortured by evil queen Galadriel.

Embrace the weirdness or perish, Amazon. I promise you that Tolkien fans are long gone, they won't be coming back, no matter what you do, nor should they. Make peace with the fact that your audience is now the monsterfucker girlies (me) and go down to hell with us.

[clockworkprism]

Why do they adapt books if they don't actually want to adapt them? I just don't get it. It might help with marketing but then as soon as fans of the original see it they'll hate it and you've started off on the wrong foot.

Like Rings of Power. I don't know if I would have liked it with a different name, but now all I can see is how hard they deviated from the source material. Not only is the basic narrative completely off, but they changed Galadriel to the point she's unrecognizable. Galadriel is one of the oldest elves in existence, like her great grandfather was one of the first ever elves to awaken. But they decided to go with your standard "young hot headed strong female character who was bullied in her youth and now needs to prove herself" arc. So she's being the young and impetuous elf to.... Gil Galad? Who is basically her nephew? It's a lazy trope that doesn't fit at all.

And that's not even touching the broader world building problems. Why don't the female dwarves have beards? Why do older elves look older? How could Galadriel, an elf who saw the light of the trees, pass for human just by hiding her ears? Elves are instantly recognizable, they practically glow.

The show is not without it's good moments, but it's not middle earth. The dwarves storyline was interesting, the Harfoots were compelling. An elf with PTSD having to patrol former territory of the enemy was a great idea. But the lore is just all wrong. It's just constantly pulling me out of the story.

And by the Valar who thought it was a good idea to imply a Galadriel/Sauron romance??????

Anyway, this isn't just to hate on RoP but it's another example of just using an IP for marketing while barely bothering to read it.